News

Provincial authorities arrested eight Vietnamese fishermen who illegally crossed into un-demarcated Cambodian waters in Kampot province on Tuesday. The two boats were intercepted by river police in the early morning while they were trawling, Touch Poleak, deputy director of the water border protection department, said.   Sar ...

A group of families in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district gathered in their sludge-filled street yesterday, fearing authorities were moving in to evict them – for a second time. Many of the Andong village residents had taken the day off work; if anyone was coming ...

Activist monk Luon Sovath has been named the recipient of this year’s Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders for his work promoting villagers’ land claims and publicising rights abuses. A familiar figure at protests in Cambodia, including the widely decried May trial of the Boeung Kak 13, ...

The number of strikes in Cambodia’s garment industry could be set to dip and workers could be on their way to free lunches after both sides of the industry signed a two-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) yesterday. The MoU – inked by the Garment Manufacturers Association (GMAC) in ...

Cambodia’s aromatic variety of jasmine rice was awarded top prize at the Rice Trader World Rice Conference in Bali, Indonesia, last month Cambodia is now seeking to expand its exports of its jasmine rice and other varieties. Ung Chhengsear, a representative of Cambodian rice export company Lor ...

Container traffic through Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, Cambodia’s second largest port, increased by 16 percent in the first nine months of this year thanks to increasing import and export activities in garments and construction materials, the port authority said on Wednesday In March last year, to ...

visiting Prima Vitlay, vice minister of industry of Belarus today met with deputy prime minister and finance minister of Cambodia, Keat Chhon, here to expand cooperation and trade ties between two countries. Prima told finance minister: “his country schedules to open a tractor factory in Cambodia ...

Nagaworld Hotel was the venue for Monday night’s occasion, exactly 20 years after the very first Silk Air flight into Phnom Penh on October 1, 1992. The event came on the same evening as the launch of Tiger Airways’ service between Phnom Penh and Singapore ...

The amount of cargo entering Cambodia through the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port has increased 15.24 percent through the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period last year, a port official said yesterday. Hei Bavy, general director of the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, ...

Cambodia is being considered as a site for halal food production and rice milling by the United Arab Emirates, according to the UAE’s Foreign Trade Minister Sheikha Lubna Bint Khalid Al Qasimi yesterday. Speaking during an official meeting with Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace ...

The 20-year jail sentence for independent radio station owner Mam Sonando made headlines around the world yesterday, but coverage of Mr. Sonando’s case was markedly different in local Khmer-language media yesterday, particularly national TV where not a mention was made. While the three major Khmer-language newspapers- ...

Despite the government embarking on a nationwide land-titling program, there is still little space for communities affected by economic land concessions to voice their concerns with the government, members of civil society said at a conference in Phnom Penh yesterday. “We’ve observed that there is limited ...

More than two months after the firm announced it would list on the Cambodian Securities Exchange, Bonna Realty has selected Tong Yang Securities to underwrite its initial public offering (IPO), an official said yesterday. Sung Bonna, the CEO of the Phnom Penh-based realty firm, said that ...

The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology yesterday warned that a tropical storm, which is forecast to hit the coast of Vietnam this weekend, will worsen flooding across much of Cambodia. ...

The salary for Cambodian civil servants has seen an average increase of 540 per cent compared to salaries in 2001, according to a report from the national news agency Agence Kampuchea Presse last Thursday.   Yim Serey Vathanak, national project coordinator on trade unions for social ...

The government has completed the communal land-titling process for three ethnic Bunong communities in Mondolkiri province living on 1,000 hectares of land in Keo Seima district, villagers and a rights group said yesterday. The three new titles-which will bring to six the total number of communal titles granted ...

Cambodia is among the tropical countries whose forests are being cleared using increasingly advanced methods to feed a growing global trade in illegal timber worth at least $30 billion a year, according to a new report. The report, Green carbon, black trade, a joint effort by ...

The recent deluge of comments critical toward the Cambodian government is an attempt to sow political chaos, a senior official said yesterday. At a press conference held at the Council of Ministers, Keo Remy, deputy chairman of the Press and Quick Reaction Unit, blasted several individuals ...

Svay Rieng Provincial Court officials are investigating an employee of the Ministry of Interior who is accused of fraudulently selling his land to someone and not honouring the deal. Ros Sithan, a logistics department officer at the ministry, was arrested on the evening of September 28, ...

The International Monetary Fund has revised Cambodia’s economic growth projection to between 6.5 and 7 per cent, up from 6.2 per cent in April, saying the country could manage a sound macro-economy because of the growth in four main sectors: manufacturing, tourism, agriculture and construction. According to Ek ...

A senior government spokesman held an impromptu press conference at the Council of Ministers yesterday to defend Prime Minister Hun Sen against critics and accused the U.N.’s human rights envoy to Cambodia [Surya Subedi] of being biased in his assessment of the country’s electoral process. In ...

Global development group Oxfam on Wednesday called on the World Bank to suspend financing for large-scale land acquisitions to ensure that its practices do not encourage foreign land grabs in developing countries. Oxfam urged Jim Yong Kim, the lender’s new president, to announce a six-month moratorium ...

Three of the Cambodia’s most important donors have now condemned the 20-year jail term handed down to independent radio station owner Mam Sonando for alleged insurrection activities-a verdict branded as politically motivated by many local and international human rights groups. Despite the tough words from the normally very ...

Workers at shuttered plush-toy company First & Main claimed yesterday their bosses had forced them to thumbprint resignation letters they had not written, a plan they feared could deny them severance pay. Mech Mom, a representative of the 357 workers at the US-owned factory, in the ...